Arabs are masters of more than a light weight, aud have done some wonderful 

 things under very heavy weights. 



"A member of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons thus speaks of an 

 Arab fourteen hands one inch he had the opportunity of seeing a few years ago. 

 He might not have seen many Arabs, yet his knowledge of anatomy enabled him at 

 once to appreciate the horse : 'I consider him better able to carry fourteen stone than 

 many horses that measure fifteen hands, and more elastic and easy to ride ; his hind 

 quarters are longer and bigger than some horses at sixteen hands. I believe him 

 to be the most perfect horse I have ever seen.' Here we have the acknowledgment 

 from a professional man, who, after some thirty years' experience, during which 

 period he must have seen some of the elite of England, that the one little Arab 

 stranger, not a selected horse, was the most perfect specimen of the equine race 

 he had met with ; and further, a declaration that in an animal of fourteen hands one 

 inch actual greater size was found than in many of sixteen hands, yet with a perfect 

 form. A small horse is not necessarily a weed, and one apparently very large may 

 be in reality a small horse, may be light and weedy; another may be big, coarse 

 and weedy. An overgrown horse, although he may have wonderful shoulders and 

 quarters, big limbs and large bone, if he fails in his middle piece and loins, which 

 is very often the case, is weedy; he is not in harmony — he lacks the constitutional 

 powers to work his large frame. A small, light horse, with light and sloping shoul- 

 ders, with powerful quarters and thighs, and even with great depth of chest, may 

 also be a weed from being deficient in barrel, flat and narrow instead of swelling 

 development, and faulty in the loins. These horses may have speed, they may be 

 prepared and win a race, but they are not the horses that would have won the races 

 a hundred years ago. 



"It may be called heresy, but it is nevertheless proved, that very many of our 

 celebrated modern racers are and have been nothing more nor less than weeds. 

 Others have said the Arab's weak points are his shoulders, and his paces are bad — ■ 

 nothing less than execrable. The paces of a horse (except the gallop) are very 

 much what the rider makes them. Arabs have little or no trouble taken with their 

 education. In India they are taught to walk badly, to step at a short, contracted pace, 

 by their being constantly, and sometimes for weeks together, led by their syces 

 (grooms) at the rate of about two miles an hour. It is hardly fair to blame a horse 

 for the very faults man has taught him. I suppose one would not be far wrong in 

 saying that ninety out of every hundred men who ride are carried as their horses 

 choose to go, not as their rider likes. If a horse trots, his rider is content to go at 

 a trot ; if he canters, the rider concludes that he cannot trot. So it is with the Arab — 

 he has been taught a cramped action before at a walk. When his owner gets up, 

 instead of correcting the errors that have been forced upon his horse, he contents 

 himself by saying that no Arab can walk; the horse has probably never been tried 

 at a trot, therefore it is said he cannot trot. I affirm that the Arabian can walk, 

 trot and gallop. I have possessed some that would walk five miles an hour, and 

 certainly one that could do that pace at the rate of six or more miles in the hour. 

 The fastest trotter I ever rode — or perhaps have ever seen, unless among trained 

 trotters — was an Arab. Even the detractors of the Arab allow that he will gallop 

 at speed with ease and in safety over broken and rough ground. This is certain 

 proof that his shoulders are not faulty, and a most incontestable proof that they 

 are very perfect. Besides this I will give two illustrations, which will, I think, 

 convince any horseman that the Arab must have good and perfect shoulders. 



"Most must have noticed when riding on the grass by the side of roads, how 

 • constantly their horses are putting their feet into the grips, or on the edge of them, 

 which have been cut to carry off the water, and which, it would appear, they were 

 incapable of avoiding, jerking and shaking their own limbs, and making it un- 

 pleasant for their riders. I have known Arabs, on the contrary, either at a canter or 



